Fairytales

Alex: "Once upon a time there was a nice doggie and a nice dragon who wanted to play together."

I love when the dramas are interrupted by fairytale moments. ;-)

Happy Birthday, America!

I love America. Land of the free. Home of the brave. So grateful to live here.

We celebrated America's birthday with friends. And even though the rain tried to squash our plans for fireworks, we persevered.

The dads went into the rain to light the fireworks while us moms and the kiddos stood in the garage to watch the show. If you look closely, you can see the raindrops and the reflection of the fireworks in the water on the ground.

The kids had a blast (no pun intended) and kept jumping up and down and screaming, "Happy Birthday, America!"

Oh, and they especially loved the sparklers. =)

God Bless America!

Christmas in the Summer

Look very closely, and you'll see a sticker that reads, "I met Santa Claus."

While running some errands at a local mall a couple of weeks ago, I looked up from pushing our stroller to find a magical sight. A white-haired man with a perfectly combed beard was wearing a red t-shirt with suspenders and white Bermuda shorts. The lady next to him was wearing a red and white striped shirt with white pants. They both had on red hats, red socks and white shoes.

I leaned over to Alex, and quietly whispered, "Look over there! Do you think that's Santa and Mrs. Claus?!" He stared for just a moment and nodded his head yes. I said to him, "I think they're on their summer vacation! Look, they're wearing their summer clothes!"

Santa spotted us noticing him, and he and Mrs. Claus came over to greet us. Oh. My. Goodness. It was almost like Christmas morning for me! They gave the boys candy canes and these two sweet little cards with pictures of themselves.

 

The first card, they gave to Alex. On the backside was this note:



He was so excited that he had been "caught being nice!" The next card they gave to Roo:

I read it to the boys – affirming everything it said – while Santa and Mrs. Claus were standing there.

I almost got tears in my eyes as I thought about what a sweet, sweet ministry they had. The magic of Santa directing them to the love of Jesus. No mall-sponsored event. No scheduled appearance. Just Santa and Mrs. Claus out "vacationing" from the North Pole, and looking for opportunities to let children know they are loved. Divine magic.

Thankful for their daddy

Every night when he comes through the door, these boys run to him and scream, "Daddy!!" And he is overjoyed to see them. They embrace as though they haven't seen each other in months. Oh, boy, does my heart just light up to see it!

I am not one to spend much time dwelling on things of the past. Onward and upward, I say, but, sometimes, we need reflection to help us truly grasp the depth of gratitude we should have for the blessings in our lives.

At this point in my life, I am nearing 20 years without contact from/with my own dad. And that absence has made me eternally grateful for what an absolutely amazing, wonderful father God has given to these boys.

I wouldn't trade my life for all the tea in China – wouldn't have had it run a different course even if I could. For many reasons. One being that it certainly has given me the perspective not to take this for granted.

Jerry – once again, God's plans were bigger and better than even my most hopeful of dreams. I am certain that I don't even tell you enough what a blessing you are to our lives. I love you for every bit of yourself that you pour into this family. God was so gracious to give us you. You have our hearts. xo

Little Men's Big Adventures – Sesame Place

Well let me just tell you, we had a blast using our "memory-making dollars" to churn out the memories on our vacation!

Bound for Sesame Place!

When we started brainstorming about what to do with our stash, we looked into places that were within driving distance around here. This part of the country is packed full of great places to see and things to do. We weighed a number of options from the beach to local outings. Ultimately, we knew we wanted to find something we thought the boys would love. And that's when it hit us that Sesame Place would be a winner!

I learned quickly on this trip that having the boys dress alike made it soooo much easier to keep up with them.

Sesame Place was an awesome choice for our family because it is designed almost entirely for toddler and pre-school age kids. We loved that our family could go on almost every ride together, and there were only a couple of rides out of the whole park that the boys couldn't do because of height/age restrictions.

I love that Sesame has an "Elmo Pass" which is the same price as a one-day ticket and you get to come back for a second day free. Sign us up? Yes, please! We spent two full days from park-opening at 10a until about 4:30 each afternoon. Roo did surprisingly well given that he got very little nap each day. What little nap he did get was after lunch when we would ride the lazy river around a few times while he slept on top of me in the inner tube. You know I loved that sweet cuddle time!

Alex's first roller coaster ride ever!

Alex proved, yet again, to be our fearless thrill-seeker. I am always so surprised to see how much he loves the adrenaline rush. He is such a straight arrow in so many ways and cautious about many of the things he tries. But not when it comes to adventure. His first ride at Sesame Place was Super Grover's roller coaster called Vapor Trail. He rode it three times in a row and then came back later that day to ride it again. AND, he rode every water slide that he was tall enough to get on!

Every tired little boy needs a rest and a popcorn snack in the afternoon.

The park was split pretty evenly between dry rides and water rides. When we were in Hershey earlier that week, the temps were in the low 60s and it poured rain. So we weren't really sure how the whole water-ride thing was going to work out. We were very fearful that it was going to be miserably cold. But wouldn't you know it, the weather on the two days we were at Sesame was sunny and high in the low 90s. Answered prayers, baby! The water was chilly at first, but it was great once the day wore on and became hotter.

We made a good decision in hitting the park while schools were still in session. We never waited more than five minutes to get on any ride. It. Was. Awesome. Needless to say, we squeezed in every bit of fun we could in our two days there!

The Flyin' Fish was one of Roo's favorite rides. We would do this one over and over while Alex tried out a few rides that Roo wasn't quite tall enough for. We did ride together as a family a couple of times. Here's Alex enjoying the thrill.

Both boys love a good slide. They went down this one more than a dozen times!

Roo and I were waiting while Alex and Daddy rode Blast Off. Blast Off is one of those rides where they take you up, up, up and then drop you down.

Here's Alex and Daddy going up, up, up.

And down!! Would you look at that face?!

We rode together as a family once, but poor little Roo did not have the same affinity for this ride as his brother (who probably rode this close to 10 times). He was a little fearful once we got going. Fortunately, the plunges are pretty minimal (comparatively speaking) since the park is designed for little ones, and it doesn't last that long. He was most definitely glad when we got off that thing.

Grover's World Twirl. Kind of like the Tea Cups at Disney. We tried very hard to keep it from spinning too much – for all our sakes!

More slides...

Ganny and Grandpa had sent the boys some money a while back, and we saved it for our trip so that they could buy something special on our last day at the park. Roo opted for Burt...

And Alex picked out Ernie's huge rubber duck...

Each afternoon we lined up to watch the parade, which the boys loved.

One of the coolest things we experienced was when Burt saw Alex's rubber duck, he ran across the parade to go grab Ernie.

He brought Ernie back, and they played with the duck while inviting Alex to come dance with them in the parade. Alex may love roller coasters and water slides, but he wanted no part of dancing in the parade with the two of them. ;-) He did think it was pretty neat that they played with his duck, though.

Waving to the characters in the parade.



And one of my favorite little videos from the trip – here's Roo-bear dancing to the music and the parade.

 Back at the hotel with souvenirs in hand.

And all dressed up in their Cookie Monster shirts for dinner out on our last night there. I thought they'd wear their shirts to the park so that I could get some cute pictures with the characters, but it turns out that it's really best to just plan on wearing swimsuits all day long. Not to mention that the boys did NOT want their picture made with the characters. They liked looking at them just fine, but really wanted no part of cozying up for a photo.

Well I'm happy to say that the boys did indeed love Sesame! In fact, Alex still talks about it all the time. And while, down the road, they may not remember their time there, their daddy and I sure will. Sweet memories! Thank you Noni and Pop Pop for helping to fund our great big adventure! And to Ganny and Grandpa for the boys' special prizes!